Review: Nokia 808 PureView

When the Nokia 808 PureView was announced earlier this year its 41MP camera sensor (for a maximum output resolution of 38MP) made headlines all over the tech industry. Not only does it feature the highest-resolution sensor of any mobile phone camera, but at the time of writing, the 808 PureView features the highest-resolution sensor of any current camera outside of highly specialist (and very costly) medium format equipment.

We've been eager to gets our hands on an 808 since the phone was announced, and a loan sample finally arrived in our Seattle office recently. We've been using it ever since. Please note though that this article doesn't touch on the 808 PureView's performance as a phone. That's not what interests us. We want to see what it's like as a camera...

Features

The Nokia 808 PureView's large CMOS sensor has 41MP total, outputting a maximum of 38MP (resolution drops to 36MP in 16:9 aspect ratio). Such a high resolution sensor would be little more than a stunt if the camera specifications aren't up to scratch, but Nokia has designed the 808 to be a serious photographic tool. As well as some pretty impressive hardware, Nokia has also included a raft of enthusiast-friendly photographic features in the 808 including manual control over white balance, ISO and exposure (via exposure compensation and bracketing). Exposure compensation is as good as it gets though, in terms of manual exposure control - the 808 does not offer PASM modes (not unsurprisingly).

This diagram shows the size of the Nokia 808 PureView's 1/1.2" sensor in comparison to those used in various compact cameras and mobile phones. A Four Thirds sensor is included for scale.

As you can see, the 808 PureView is packing quite an impressive sensor, much larger than those found in compact cameras, and not that much smaller than the CX-format sensors used by Nikon in its 1-system and Sony's recently-announced Cyber-shot RX100.

The Finnish company is at pains to point out that when it comes to image capture, the 808's headline specification of 41MP is far from the whole story. In fact, one of the reasons why Nokia has incorporated such a high pixel count is to allow the 808 to produce better quality lower-resolution images (3MP, 5MP or 8MP).

The 808 PureView runs the effectively-defunct Symbian operating system. Future PureView-equipped phones will almost certainly run a version of Microsoft's Windows Phone OS.

The interesting stuff for us is on the back of the phone. The 808's camera module is quite a lump - not surprising considering the size of the sensor. The 808 also features a xenon flash and F2.4 Carl Zeiss lens.

The camera interface is relatively simple but versatile. In the PureView capture modes (8MP/5MP/3MP) you can zoom by simply swiping vertically on the screen.

Nokia makes a spring-loaded clamp with a tripod screw on the base to allow you to use the 808 on a tripod for self-portraits, group shots, or long exposures.

While it might sound counterintuitive to shoot a 38MP camera at 3MP, it actually makes a lot of sense in a device of this type. Apart from anything else, if you are one of those people whose first reaction to this product was to scream 'you don't need 41MP in a camera phone! The world has gone mad! The sky is falling in!' in a sense you were right - most people simply don't need to capture such high-resolution images on a phone.

But what you probably do want from a cellphone camera is good image quality, decent speed and responsiveness, and wouldn't it be nice to have a zoom, too? That's what the 808's lower-resolution PureView modes are designed to allow.

PureView (3/5/8MP)

Putting optical zooms into cellphone cameras is hard. Really really hard, which is why manufacturers tend to include digital zooms instead. Effectively just cropping and upsizing, conventional digital zoom kills image quality. Normally, the instinct of any serious digital photographer would be to run away from 'digital zoom' features for precisely this reason. But the 808 is very far from conventional.

Images captured in the 808's PureView modes are created by oversampling from the sensor's full resolution. At the 808's 'native' focal length of 28mm equivalent, the oversampling ratio is 14:1 for 3MP images, compared to 8:1 for 5MP and 5:1 for 8MP.

In Nokia's words, 'pixel oversampling combines many pixels to create a single (super) pixel'. In theory then, at 28mm (equivalent) - i.e., without any 'zoom', the camera's 3MP PureView output should give the best critical image quality, followed by 5MP, then 8MP, and then 38MP. When fully zoomed in, all four output modes will give the same pixel-level image quality, since at this point there is no oversampling going on -as incated by '1:1' in the graph above.

PureView 'Zoom'

How much you can 'zoom' using the 808 depends on what output resolution mode you're in. If you're shooting at full resolution you can't zoom at all - you're stuck with the lens' native 28mm (equivalent) focal length. In 3MP PureView mode you get the equivalent of a 3.6X 'zoom' - this drops to roughly 3X in 5MP mode, and about 2X in 8MP mode. The table below shows four images, taken at the 'longest' extent of the 'zoom' in each of the 808's output resolution modes.

38 MP (1X)

8 MP (~2X)

5 MP (~3X)

3 MP (~3.6X)

Compared to today's travelzoom compacts a 3.6X zoom is nothing much to shout about, but it's better than no zoom at all or - worse - a conventional digital zoom that upsizes cropped images into mush. Even a 2X zoom in 8MP mode allows a useful degree of control over framing, as you can see from the image above.

Comments

Just ordered a NEW BLACK NOKIA 808 from the USA for £118 all paid, through Ebay. I plan to use the phone as a camera only with no sim. If used correctly it should be capable of some stunning images,I have other DSLR's so I know good quality...but the 808 is pocketable and that's what appeals as well.

Well, after all this time, I have just spent £500 on the Samsung S6 which is today's state of the art camera phone, and after a lot of testing it is clear that the 808 camera is BETTER!Unfortunately I have to go with the S6 because Symbian never acquired a web browser which works with "modern" websites. The best it ever got was Opera Mobile which is only just usable. But, I run a sizeable site and Opera is under 1% of the browser type table so it's not worth supporting it. That alone makes the otherwise perfectly functional phone dead for most users.And it doesn't make sense to use it as a camera-only either because for about £400 you can get a pocket camera which is as good or better.It's amazing how far ahead Nokia were when they managed to throw it all away.

I have compared Nokia 808 with Canon S90 and i found that Nokia 808 has more details in pics.Both pics taken at daylight with S90 10mp settings and Nokia 808 on 8mp without zoom.Although pics looked similar but Nokia gave fine details than Canon S90.Nokia 808 is a winner here!!!!

Apple sold 5 million iPhone 5s the first weekend it was available compared to about 234,000 for the 808 in it's first 6 months and Samsung sells more smartphones than Apple worldwide. Sure the 808 is the best camera in a phone but Symbian is dead meat.

The best feature of this phone is the sound track of videos. Not sounding too far from professional recordings. I am not saying that they sound close to professional recordings but that they are incomparably better than say the iPhone's.

I bought this thing for the camera. Yes I had some $450 to burn. And they were burned, like most of my photos so far with exposure all over the place and washed out colors more often than not. In most circumstances, my iPhone 5 is better.

on the 808 you probably just stuck with auto or the face detection didn't kick in. did you try "vivid" mode? did you take the time to get over the learning curve of the 808's advanced features? sure, the iphone 5 has better metering to get the shot for you. but in more capable hands, the 808 has all the tools (manual wb, exposure control, nd filter, bracketing modes) to handle more situations and finer adjustmens (brightness/contrast/saturation/RGB) to suit most tastes. and you probably wish that the iphone 5 can go from pocket to camera mode in 3 seconds. how long have you used the iphone 5 vs the 808?

some of my friends carry the iphone5 and samsung s4's and guess what??... they all envy photo shots from my 808.. either there is something wrong with your phone or you need to take a crash course on how to properly use it..

i have the phone for about a month. Photo (pixels) quality is good. Unfortunately lens has alot of distortion (it is 26mm equiv) totally incapable/inappropriate of shooting scenes with people in the corners (it stretches their heads in a very obvious ugly way). The lens for landscapes its fine but for faces/people.. nope.. So always place them in the centre of the frame (forget 3:2 rule, crop later) if you wand a better result.

Image stabilization (luck of) is another problem. It results in blurred/shaked pictures.

I also have a canon S90 (and a 500d). In my opinion, S90 produces more pleasant pictures due to less distortion of the lens (better correction i should say). I need to do more tests on that (if i prefer s90 or 808).

It would be interesting to see this sensor put into some other phones or a tablet using the new Nvidia Tegra 4 processor that allows for very fast automated HDR processing. The fast HDR could address the highlight clipping issue.

Nope, not really, the whole image processing takes place in a dedicated chip. The processor does not have access to the sensor data. That's why a slow phone like the 808 does not have any performance issues while shooting 38MP images.

The only way to get more dynamic range, is to enlarge the pixels (reduce the resolution) but keep the same sensor size.

Lack of dynamic range is one of the major problems of the N808 image sensor.

I'm not intending to necropost, but there are some precisions to be made.

Even though Symbian is 'dead' (the fact a 'dead' platform is actively generating € 2.7 bn to Nokia isn't considered) there is still an app store for this phone, and there are two apps, Oloneo Photoengine and CameraPro 808, that fix some of the 'cons'. CameraPro essentially is a new interface for the camera, while Oloneo will automate your HDR photographing. Both have to be reviewed.

About why Symbian: Windows Phone won't support more than 8 MPx, and there is no mobile OS except Symbian that lets you access the hardware directly, support natively the oversampling and all those features. It's impossible for a Windows Phone or Android app to directly access the camera. Those capabilities are possible for Symbian apps, though.

How can a Symbian programmer access the hardware directly? By the provided libraries on the Symbian SDK, probably not. That's why CameraPro, although can do a good job in some areas, is far from giving full camera controls as we would expect from an app that could have full hardware access.

I had a N8, which could be also Pureview branded as it uses the same 808 main concepts. CameraPro never given anything better in terms of auto-HDR, aperture and shutter speed control.

Another example is the FM transmitter. Why don't we never had an app capable of changing that boring RDS text always showing "NOKIA" in our radios' LCD? This could easily changed (if bypassing Nokia's API would be possible) to the current music being played.

Symbian could be still in good shape, but after launching Symbian^3, updates (Anna, Belle, FP1 and FP2) became rare and with short changelogs. Android and iOS then easily surpassed Symbian's features.

Ok I now have tested it and have to say this phone is just a overhyped gadget. The camera is ok for P&S standards but nothing in the area of being "impressive, stunning" whatever. 34MP 16:9 mode gives just rather soft images and you see even very little shake. The lack of image stabilisation makes it just not suitable for serious photography. And even at ISO64 you see little grain at 34MP. The pureview mode gives ok results but nothing a good P&S can do. And I liked the ISO200 and above results of my Canon S95 better.Video is just unusable, you hear every little sound of your fingers touching the phone and the lack of image stabilisation is just frustrating(and the one offered is a joke because it just makes the image jumping but not stable).Beside all this it is just a mere phone with nothing special to offer. And IMHO it is just a rather clunky phone, so is the handling.Don´t believe the hype, I don´t recommend it.

wow, there must be something wrong with your unit thenmine is tack sharp and the video is staggeringly good.http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7254/7869775616_851baa431f_h.jpgthat was at 34 mp, handheld on a cloudy day.Does it match my DSLR or CSC? No, but they do not fit in my pocket and blows away, at full resolution and in good light, IQ wise my XZ-1 and GRD 3.My network issues have resolved with a reset and new SIM as well...

It appears there is a serious bug affecting the 808, basically the phone, text and data connection freezes (although the user looking at the phone won't be able to tell since it looks like a good connection etc.) - but the user won't be able to receive phone calls, text messages etc.. This happens after several hours and requires a reboot to get things working again....until it happens again.

Nokia has said they are working on a fix, but until one is out it could be a very bad phone experience.

wow. thanks for the "heads up". My phone is on it's last legs. I had thought I would get an iphone 5 but the camera upgrade is ho-hum, maps are a mess, and I'm ticked off over the whole chipped cable $$$$ grab by apple. I'm leaning hard towards the 808 as I need a good phone, good maps and good camera first, time wasting apps last and for what I really need the 808 is either great (camera) or good enough.

I have a Nokia E7 with Belle and maps etc... Great phone and even the responsiveness is very good even with a nominally slow CPU. I am sure the N808 is better in every respect, not to mention the camera.

I have had mine since early August.I have been completely impressed with the camera.The IQ is so good, esp in pureview mode (in good light in full resolution mode as well) that it has quite spoiled me.The OS is not as smooth say as ICS or Jelly Bean in Android.But it does work and work well enough for me.Understand that I have had an N8 as well for nearly 2 years so my learning curve was small :)

But why buy an expensive cameraphone with an obsolete OS - when you can buy a better phone or a better camera?When they bring out the same camera capabilities in a Windows 8 or Android phone I might be interested.

They can't bring the same camera capabilities in Win or And or iPhone because the whole phone would be too expensive - the Symbian OS was extremely efficient (one of its strengths) and the hardware in the 808 besides the camera tech was very inexpensive (single core processor etc.).

WP 8, Android and iPhone you're needing much more expensive guts for the computer part of the phone and add the expensive 808 camera tech in and you've got a $1k smart phone which few will buy. Nokia has brought out their new WP8 high end (920) which has a standard size smartphone sensor but adds Image Stabilization so it'll be better than other smartphones but won't come close to the sensor on the 808. JMHO...

I had mine since July and I'd say $645 is really worth it for the phone. I appreciate - enormously - how it helps me catch every moments i want to shoot on. Only symbian OS can handle that wooping camera for now. Maybe in the near future apple samsung and other mobile manufacturers would be able to deliver the same type of camera but i'd say that would really take too much time. 808's camera was 5 years in the making. NO PHONE would ever be made with 41 MP without being clunky. Nokia had done the best so far. Kudos!

Things could be about to get interesting...That's the conclusion of dpreview's review of 808.

Hasn't anyone noticed how the digital camera market has changed last months, with practically all manufacturers presenting small, everyday cameras sporting huge (compared to the recent past) sensors? A year ago, it was great seeing 1/1.7'' sensors in digital cameras, now this is a "no biggie".

Am I suggesting that a phone manufacturer somehow managed to haste the camera manufacturers into presenting great products, we would otherwise have to wait for some more years to see? Because that would clearly be a Nokia victory...

And while the traditional Asian camera manufacturers speed up to integrate their newly achieved know how and idea's into devices that can call, upload and surf, the 808 is hardly known (no markting effort, not to hurt MS) and Pureview redifined to the public as a kind of IOS for night shots that was supposed to give you sharp images at night at all circumstances. A typical Nokia job finished. Over to the next tech demo.

Weird focus on some messages seems to be how Nokia is dying/doing wrong/late/whatever... the fact is; it is out now and regardless of anything else, it is a killer camera and a usable phone. It does not have the ui mastery of iphone, sure the old Symbian is showing it's age...

The pictures are really that crazy sharp and clean, I liked how pictures came out from my N8 and this one just blows past it (Using 8mp creative mode, so getting most out of pureview and the large sensor, don´t really zoom.. just want the extra cleanliness of the pictures)

I bought this to complement my 5d2 on the road while it is having a major underhaul (10 months on the road and largely in Asia have not beed kind to it, I guess moisture finally caught up with it)I use phone for secondary photography when I don't want to take out/carry my 5d2 and this is a perfect one for the road. For me worth every penny, as I will always have a good camera with me wherever I go.

Killer camera? It sucks compared to a real camera. Don't delude yourself into thinking it is anything more than a phone with a camera built in. I am totally unimpressed with the sample images. They are only a little over 2mp. I thought it produced 38mp images or was that false advertising?

Hehehe, the comments :) Foremost it takes an idiot to conclude Nokia needs any help in destroying sales of its next flagship phone. They (Nokia) have proven to be capable to handle this task perfectly on their own: -announce the OS dead in early 2011 (even though supported till 2016 and forming your main sales) -non availability of the flagship device in key markets through regular sales channels-no marketing effort apart from a few tech interviews-Windows phone is plan A and plan B mantra-...

So I'd suspect expect the idiot himself is actually paid by Nokia, their shareholder, or maybe it is their CEO with too much time on his hands :)

another nice advantage of this concept is the ability to mix and match with different software interfaces. imagine downloading new art filters whenever they're available. something that dedicated digital cameras sorely lack.

"one of the most important innovations - arguable the most important - in mobile photography since the smartphone era dawned five or so years ago."

You can keep the useless apps, ill keep my Pureview camera. Amazon USA has 25 reviews on the Nokia 808 right now, real buyers that's the only reason they can review it. Have a read before buying, they are very insightful.

Pertogel! I understand you hate this "junk" (which, BTW, delivers way better per-pixel sharpness in 3/5/8 Mpixel modes than any, even top-tier P&S cameras in their native one) but, please, stop telling us straight lies. For example, this is not "almost 700 euros". Everywhere below 600: Finland between 560 and 599; amazon.de 550 now, so is on amazon.fr etc. You can always order from the latter two; the H&S costs are around 10 euros for both Amazon subsidiaries.

"The following link is one of the main providers of your junk in Greece ......... and the price is 679 euros :http://www.plaisio.gr/Cell-Phones-Internet/Mobile-Telephone/Cellular-Phones.htm?Manufacturer=Nokia&CAM_RESOLUTION=41%20%20Mp"

Noone bans you from ordering directly from amazon.de or amazon.fr. (Actually, a lot of us Europeans have purchased our 808 from European Amazon.) Then, you'll have the 808 for around 570euros (550 base price + 20 S&H), but this may even go lower as for example the pre-order price of the 808 was 509 euros at amazon.de.

As a Professional Photographer for the last 8 years I can admit that I've had my Nokia 808 Pureview a month now (also an Apple user for almost 10 years) that the 808 Pureview is the best piece of tech not only of 2012 but for the last 5 years. I shoot professionally with a Canon 5D mk 2, and that the images from my phone in my pocket can match (or even better) the $3500+ camera & L series lens i use in some situations is truly mind blowing. Add to that the Free Maps & Class leading Offline Navigation, plus digital stereo sound recording at up to 140db and you have a handheld device that no phone can match in imaging or sound quality, and no camera can match in ease of use, features, phone & internet capabilities. What other Camera can you send emails on or Navigate you at no charge to over 70+ countries around the globe without a sim card even inserted.

It's a shame that Apple's Marketing has most people brainwashed into needing worthless App's.

LasvegasPhotographer that is a load of crap. The Pureview has a tiny sensor and can not come close to the quality of a full frame sensor purely because technilogical limitations. If you don't believe me have a look at this comparison from dpreview http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/9492148352/photos/2150245/pureview_808_compareThat's a clear difference in noise levels. I'm not saying that it isn't a great achievement but if you say it is better than a 5DmkII with L lens you need new glasses or a better monitor.What do you mean with up to 140dB recording. 140dBa would leave you with bleeding ears. I doubt it is 140 dB dynamic range which is only achieved with top end studio equipment. Most consumer audio equipment is only 80 to 100 dB.

Nokia's engineering dept is still there, a lot of dedicated and sharp ppl. It's the marketing and business ppl that really did them in. I was always happy with the three Nokia phones I have owned over the years, but their OS is what kept me from buying another one. The hardware was always good.

The Windows Phone 8 version won't have the 808's big sensor (it'd make the WP 8 phone too expensive since the WP 8 phone's guts are much more expensive than the computer guts of the 808). The high end Nokia WP 8 is the 920 and has a standard size sensor (but they add Image Stabilization which is cool).

I'm very impressed not just with the technology, but also with the outside-the-box thinking that fueled its development. Very impressive.

One thing I also like about this camera phone is that it also reportedly has very superior audio playback. Combine that with a 64gb memory card and you've got yourself a top-notch compact camera/MP3 music player combo. Nice job by Nokia!

What happened with the comparison with the real DSLR's , Pentax 451 or EOS 5D or Nikon D 800, that some of the funny commentators were claiming Nokia's superiority, Come on dear Dpreview post a review (we all need to laugh a little). Oh i forgot Nokia has a lot of "useless" megapixels to be compared with a real photo cameras.

Watching this full size grass shot make I've made with my Pureview 808, are these 38MP in fact useless by your expert estimation? I have only a lowly D700 and a few primes to compare. Need a real 20 - 40MP cam for scientific comparison.

Very impressed by the image quality. Pretty soon I'll be able to get rid of my small digital camera and cell phone. Handbag is getting very heavy. My next purchase will be a Nokia PureView 808, or something like it. I can't wait. Fine job, Nokia!

1, the DR of the camera is much better than that of the iPhone 4S (and, consequently, the S3). I REALLY recommend checking out the direct comparison of the two phones in the two shots right under the sentence "Highlight roll off, although not as nice as a DSLR of course is better than most small chip pocket cameras and certainly an improvement over the iPhone 4S.".

2, highlight clipping can easily be fought by artificially decreasing the contrast. (Of course, by dialing-in a -0.x exposure correction also works. The article states the shadows aren't very noisy.)

3, now, for the bad: as was easy to see based on GSMArena's ISO 12233 and other, comparative test shots, the 1080p effective video resolution is certainly worse than that of the 4S (and a lot other cameras / phones). Nokia, do you plan to fix this?

I can assure that isn't true. A good third of my article is about how Symbian is a pale imitation of Apple's iOS and that the video resolution isn't up to the iPhone's standard with Filmic Pro. Nokia deserve praise where it is due, the facts are pretty obvious in this case. You sir need to quit the conspiracies, the facts are staring you in the face.

Didnt care to read the review of a phone with camera. Then I wanted to investigate what all this comotion is about. After reading the review and checking with the compasison tool, I have to say I am blown away.

808 @8MP easily beats my S95 @10MP.This technology seems like a godsend for people like me who wants a bring-along-always camera. Since it is a smartphone, the size penalty is nil, as you would have the phone with you anyway. So in principle it doesnt get any smaller than this.

Symbian ? Well, I have a Symbian phone and while I have no love for it, it is reasonably functional. When a WP8 phone with the same pureview camera is released, I will be ready to snap up an 808 at a heavy discount ! ;)

I have got me a 808 as soon as it was available. I certainly wouldn't have purchased a Windows, Android or iphone. I had an Android phone and hated it. A wiretap in my pocket makes me feel uneasy. I suspect, that most of the expert opinion about symbian heralded here, is just what these guys have read elsewhere. Yes I think Symbian has more settings to dive in, but that's what I like. Reminds me of that old joke, that says Russian products are made for shrewd users, american products are made for the gormless user. :P

They ARE paying them to use it (WP-OS). And force them to ditch the N9's Linux based OS that in terms of ergonomics and performance easily blows away all iPhone/Android/Symbian/Rimberry and even WebOS had to offer so far.

Too bad because the N900 (call it the predecessor of the N9) was the only "phone" I have used that allowed me to run "the Gimp" to edit the pictures on device. (through EasyDebian chroot that is child's play to install on Maemo, no so called jailbreak required)http://openattitude.com/2010/03/19/easy-and-amazing-debian-for-the-n900/The N900 lacked ram, the N9 lacked keyboard and resistive screen. If Nokia had continued this way with Maemo OS we would be close to full editing and post processing on a pocketable device :)

Most users don't need to use desktop editing software on their phone. A WP8 device will more than cater to the needs of most users who want to be able to take fantastic shots without carrying a second device. And WP8 is a very different beast to wp7, there are some massive changes under the hood.

As for editing, there will be a variety of basic editing apps on the marketplace, but really, a phone is not the ideal form factor for full blown editing.

Also it is very unlikely that we will see one of these in an iphone due to a) the bulge on the back - apple cares about style too much to do that and b) this took nokia 5 years to develop, it's a lot more complex than it appears when explained in this article.

Who the hell wrote that review?Quote:"What it can't do, of course, is provide one of the other benefits of zoom in a conventional optical system - background blur. Even on a cheap small-sensor compact, you can achieve a degree of subject and background separation by zooming in, and reducing depth of field."

Fundamental misunderstanding of optical principles here!Take a portrait with a given distance to a person with a 500mm lens.Take the same portrait from the same distance with a 17 mm lens.Then "digitally zoom into" the 17mm pic on your monitor so that the size of the face matches on both pics side by side. What you´ll find is that the amount of background blur is exactly the same on both pics! So digital zooming won`t be any different from optical zomming - concerning depth of field...

My wording was a little ambiguous (and I've since edited it) but you are incorrect.

With the same circle of confusion, and at the same subject-to-camera distance, a longer lens gives less depth of field than a shorter one. You can see this for yourself by playing around with the FL value in a dof calculator like this one:

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

(the Nikon V1/J1 are a relatively good proxy for the 808).

If you crop from a 28mm shot on the 808, you may see an increase in background blurriness compared to the uncropped original at the same size and viewing distance but that's just because you're making the blurry bits bigger.

On the other hand, with the subject the same size in the frame (ie a constant magnification) depth of field is the same at different FLs. But subject-camera distance must increase with FL. Even though dof is the same though, subject/background separation is aesthetically superior at longer subject-camera distances (i.e., longer FLs).

Reply Part 1:Concerning the definition of DOF you are right of course. But that`s not the discussion here, because DOF definition does not deal with cropping/enlarging so a DOF calculator won`t help!

You say it for yourself: "If you crop from a 28mm shot on the 808, you may see an increase in background blurriness compared to the uncropped original at the same size and viewing distance but that's just because you're making the blurry bits bigger."- ctd. in Pt. 2 -

Reply Part 2:What`s the point of "just because"? (“O.k., these 2 guys are the same height, but that`s just because they are equally tall!!” ?) The “increase in background blurriness” is all that matters in that context! When you zoom in optically you do just that too: make the “blurry bits bigger”! And by zooming in optically the blur disc diameter increases by the same amount as it does by cropping and enlarging via digital zoom.

So against your initial statement (saying digital zoom won´t let you play with background blur) you won´t see any difference in the final image no matter zoomed digitally or optically (I`m not talking about picture quality – this is where the 40 mpx come in handy –I`m only addressing the amount of background blur!)

Look, I just took 2 pictures on the Canon S100, at wide and tele, of a subject about a meter away, with the background effectively at infinity. Max available aperture at both lens settings.

The shot taken at 120mm has a blurrier background. It just does. I'm looking at it right now. So your assertion that:

"Take a portrait with a given distance to a person with a 500mm lens. Take the same portrait from the same distance with a 17 mm lens. Then "digitally zoom into" the 17mm pic on your monitor so that the size of the face matches on both pics side by side. What you´ll find is that the amount of background blur is exactly the same on both pics!"

I'm a bit surprised, as a posting newcomer to dpreview - easily the best photo review site out there - to see such a fundamental discussion point cause an argument. Seems straightforward to me: For constant subject distance, sensor size and no diffraction effects, DOF (defined by overlap of point detail on the target) decreases as f increases *provided that* N (the f/ number) stays constant. However, if D (the actual physical aperture diameter) stays constant, then the DOF *doesn't* vary with focal length. So, say, a 5~25mm f/2 lens (unusually fast at tele) will behave as the first case, while a 5~25mm f/2-f/10 lens (unusually slow at tele) will behave as the second. Most actual lenses seem to be somewhere in between as all the elements joggle about during the zoom, hence the behaviour is a bit hard to predict. The idea of a super high res sensor plus a wide, bright, fixed focus lens and great digital downsampling, is a good one. My ~1000 characters worth, anyway!

It looks like the studio scene from the 808 is lacking in contrast, saturation, and sharpness. It is also a bit off white. All of these could easily be enhanced in Photoshop without loss of detail. I know that a sample image is a sample image but it would also be nice to see the studio shot with Photoshop auto contrast, auto exposure, corrected WB, and improved saturation to see how that compares to other cameras. If you can see past the faded sample it looks like it has great potential. It has more detail than most cameras which is something that is most difficult to add later.

@Barney Britton:I must apologize - you are absolutely right!I just was about to take some shots to see what really is the case when I realized the point of my misconception: An aperture of say 4.0 on a 17mm lens does of course not have the same diameter as an aperture of 4.0 on a 500mm. Thus background blur MUST be different. I thought I was about to discover a common misconception concerning DOF whereas the mistake was on my side!Have a nice day and keep up the good work!

Perhaps, but such hasn't stopped Apple, for example, with its expensive 'problems' with Creative, CSIRO etc in the past and I suspect the crash through or crash approach to borrowing other people's technology will persist for the big players.

Belle is a lot more bearable on an 808 than for example on a N8. It's actually pretty nice with the UI transitions and all... but it's still Symbian underneath all the sugar coating.

It'll take a while before they come up with a 41MP Pureview on WP8, I'm guessing early 2013 maybe? Christmas would be nice, but I seriously doubt it. I'd say we'll be getting a 20MP Pureview on WP8 in ... say 3 months?

Fingers crossed I sure hope if you're right in 3 months time we get some sort of PV tech inside the WP8 phones.

As mention in the DPR review (page 4) and also elsewhere (check out All About Symbian and GSMArena sites) the PV technology started 5 years ago when Symbian was the only OS available to Nokia development team. The code/drivers also special written to work with the custom chipset(s) inside the 808. Surely it takes time to re-compile the code to work on WP7.5/8.0

I own the Nokia N8 and now also the 808 and find Symbian Belle OS is not all that bad....not the latest or greatest....sure the max. screen resolution is stuck at nHD (640 x 360) and single core CPU but there still some niche features on Symbian (e.g. offline Maps, FM transmitter, etc) that not able to replicate by Android yet

Fingers crossed I sure hope if you're right in 3 months time we get some sort of PV tech inside the WP8 phones. ->with 6 months between N8's announcement and general availability and 4 months for the Pureview 808 they should have announced something for WP a month ago. My bet is it will take them over a year to implement Pureview on WP8.The reason the 808 has been released is because the WP version is still so far away that others might steal the scope from Nokia if they had kept it a lab concept like other cool stuff at Nokia that never saw daylight because of indecisive management.

Phone OS aside this "camera" is only let down by relatively poor DR (to be expected with small photosites) and the lack of an inbuilt HDR function. I have used a Galaxy SII in an "emergency" when my normal (compact) camera was not with me and with strong backligting of the subject the results were horrible. I would expect the Nokia to be no better on this count.

Otherwise, Nokia needs to be commended as this is a true landmark developement and looking at the sample images they have even got their noise reduction down to a fine art - better than most compacts I would say.

All Sony needs to do is put phone capability into the RX100 and voila a truly knockout Camera phone (rather than this Phone camera). God knows why Nokia spent so long developing this only to hamper it with an outdated operating system.

"God knows why Nokia spent so long developing this only to hamper it with an outdated operating system."You've answered your own question. They started developing this a long time ago, when Symbian was their only option. If all the software/firmware was written to use Symbian, switching to another operating system won't be quick and simple - in fact, they might have started the switch months ago, but decided to release this phone because it worked and demonstrates the technology well.

android and symbian are both linux, if they really wanted to port their interface, it wouldn't be an insurmountable challenge. but nokia's poor decision to choose symbian as a platform happened long before this phone.

I have a history of 40 years of amateur photography starting with Minolta SRT 101. Now I have one months experience using Nokia 808 as a camera but also as a smartphone. I have taken over 1000 pictures so far, travel, close ups, landscape, low light, thunderstorm etc, also videos, and I am very much impressed.Using the 808 camera, I made a Google search of sculptures close to my home, located them to the map application, started the sports tracker application and started cycling. One by one I found them, took the images, and afterwards it was easy to see the pictures on the map, to make sure, that I had not missed any. In addition to that I got data of the cycling exercise, the location of the images is also stored on sports tracker data. To muffle wind sound artifacts especially during video recording, I made a muffler of fur, it works quite nicely.The camera works nicely and the 808 camera is a good enough smartphone for my use.

What will kill this potentially good phone is the phone itself. It does not run Android nor Windows 8. It has a lousy screen resolution. How could the best camera phone have a screen resolution of 360 x 640?????? Cant see myself buying it, although this is the type of camera a photog like me would want in a phone. Until Nokia gets its OS business sorted out, no way. The whole idea in a photog cam/phone is that he wants a decent camera so the dslr stays home. This has a decent camera, but now it looks like the phone stayed home.

Yes the screen resolution is sadly a limitation of Symbian. But don't forget high res big screens impact battery life.You'd want stamina on a P&S Camera.

As phones Nokia Symbian phones have built up a very good reputation of reliability. You have excellent battery life, full wireless communication features and multitasking to switch from phone to all kinds of applications. Good reception outside city centres and sound quality.

As added plus to the 808 it IS the best camera phone.

What exactly is your problem with the phone then, apart from the screen res?

Symbian -hate it or like- it is a dedicated mobile OS that runs very low profile on modest hardware and it allows full multitasking.Too bad Nokia was too lazy to update the interface pre-Symbian Belle.You want to surf the web in high resolution I can understand that but seriously why you need so hard that mess Android or the unborn Windows 8? There are more beautiful OS-es out there that deserve your "Why Nokia didn't..."

I think you are behind the times. I search for years for a phone with a good camera. The advent of smart phone have give users new tools to live their lives. You might not agree with it but its a fact. People want ONE device in their pockets. A phone is not what it used to be. If you dont get that then you would in time. The only platforms out there worthwhile of consideration is Android, IOS, and now it appears that Windows 8 will be there too. Symbian and BB are condemned to the dustbin. I didnt make this up. As I said that I have looked for a phone with a great camera for a long time. Nokia made it but the screwed the phone part up. The screen res thing is mind boggling. Why did they have to use symbian, arent they partners with MS Windows. Dont plan to buy a phone on a dead platform. I wont give up my phone for a good camera. Neither will most people. Phones have become too important, its 2012. It appears that Nokia realized this too late as well.

Nokia developed the PureView technology for five years - and primarily for Symbian that has been their main OS for years. Windows 7.5 was simply not yet capable to cope with PureView technology - that is why it got out with Symbian at first. Although Symbian is not that "attractive and addictive" than iOS and Android may be, it is still a really good OS. Good job Nokia!

@Wilmark Yes I agree the OS has its weaknesses, and more powerful (and battery hungry) OS:s are out there today. However as hsorasahi says, WP7.5 couldn't handle it. I've seen elsewhere that the first cut WP8 cannot handle more than 20mp (I hope that's not the case, but if it is...). You state that Veltsmelter is behind the times, but how do you judge your own "with the times" if you were not aware of WP7.5 limitations, or appreciate that it'll take more than a year of cooperation before Pureview could be ported to WP? How do you know that Nokia didn't have a Maemo/Meego phone with Pureview in its pipeline before the new CEO changed ships to WP?

Guys, Yes it was stated in the article why Nokia went with symbian etc etc. And also what limitations they had with WP7.5/Even 8. Dont make a difference. I too will say good job Nokia. Personally I wont buy a phone with these limitation. A prospective buyer wont say well Nokia did the best... hmmm I will buy two of these. The Phone OS doesnt cut it, even though you have good reason. Bottom line I want a phone that has a GOOD PHONE + GOOD CAMERA. This is NOT it. Finally I dont agree with the Gold Rating, because it ignores the poor phone aspects of the device BUT it rates it highly because its a PHONE. Doesnt make sense.

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